OG Orientalism was about the Byzantines and the struggle for self-determination during the greek papacy, when rome was a backwater under east roman control. Especially once east rome adopted iconoclasm to stop the rise of islam, which raised an huge issue, since icons were a beloved tradition of roman culture. Of course romans believed in goldilocks “racism”, with the south being nerdy frail femboys and the north being dumb overmanly brutes with big dicks (yes), and the romans being the perfect middle ground.

This caused the fractured between the decadent effeminate emotional greeks vs the temperate stoic masculine latins. This was transferred to the muslims and then east asia. The tropes are basically the same across the times.